Dr. Pamela Marrone

Pamela G. Marrone is CEO and Founder of Marrone Bio Innovations, Inc. (MBI), since 2006. Prior to this position, Dr. Marrone founded AgraQuest in 1995 and served as its CEO, Chairman and/or President until April 2006. On August 2, 2013, MBI listed its stock as MBII on NASDAQ. The company’s award winning bio-based products for pest management and plant health are used in fruit, nut, vegetable and row crop markets. MBI also is marketing a product for invasive zebra and quagga mussels. MBI has several more products in the pipeline. MBI received the Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award and a California Department of Pesticide Regulation IPM Innovator award.

Before AgraQuest, she was founding president and business unit head for Entotech, Inc. (1990-1995) in Davis (CA), a successful biopesticide subsidiary of Denmark-based Novo Nordisk (sold to Abbott in 1995). At Monsanto (1983-1990), she led the Insect Biology group, which was involved in pioneering projects in transgenic crops, natural products, and microbial pesticides. She has been featured in the press and on the radio many times – Bloomberg Radio, the Wall Street Journal (front page, Nov 2005), National Public Radio, LA Times, Fortune, USA Today, Entrepreneur, Chemical & Engineering News, Farm Chemicals and others. She is an alumna of CORO Foundation’s intensive “Women in Leadership” program. In October 2014, Dr. Marrone was awarded Agrow’s “Best Manager with Strategic Vision” for her career-long leadership in biopesticides. Dr. Marrone received the NRDC’s Growing Green Award in “Business Leader” category, to recognize new pioneers in sustainable farming and food.

She is an alumni-elected Trustee of Cornell University, is Treasurer of the Association for Women in Science, is on the Board of the Association of Applied IPM Ecologists Foundation and is past-Treasurer of the Organic Farming Research Foundation. She is Founding Chair of the Biopesticide Industry Alliance (BPIA), a trade association of more than 100 biopesticide and related companies.

From 1999-2007, she served on the Board of Sutter Health’s Sacramento-Sierra Region – one of Sacramento’s largest private employers and from 1994-2007 on the Sutter Davis Hospital Foundation Board. Dr. Marrone is cofounder and was a founding Board member of UC Davis CONNECT and DATA (Davis Area Technology Association). Dr. Marrone is on the University of California President’s Board of Science and Innovation, UC Davis College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences Dean’s Advisory Council, and served previously on the UC Davis Graduate School of Management Dean’s Advisory Council. The City of Davis awarded her the first Business and Economic Development Award for job creation and her contributions to the local economy, community and industry.

Dr. Marrone was the Sacramento Chamber’s 2001 Businesswoman of the Year, and Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences 2001 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient, and a 2003 recipient of the UC Davis’ College of Agriculture and Natural Resources Alumni Award of Distinction. She holds more than 40 patents. She was elected by her peers as a Fellow of AAAS (American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science).

Dr. Marrone has a B.S. from Cornell University and a PhD from North Carolina State University, both in entomology

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